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Collation of the New Testament

The Collation of the New Testament (Latin: Collatio Novi Testamenti) is a 1447 work composed by the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla (c. 1407-1457) which compares four Latin texts of Jerome’s fourth-century Vulgate Bible with four Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.[1] Valla designated the Greek text the Graeca veritas or "true Greek."[2] The Vulgate had become the predominant Bible translation by 800 AD and thousands of handwritten copies of the text were circulated throughout Europe but these were produced with numerous errors despite efforts made by medieval scholars to correct the text.[3] Previous to Valla's work, medieval scholars such as Roger Bacon and Nicholas of Lyra had completed similar scriptural comparisons and advocated study of the Bible's original Hebrew and Greek text.[4] The revival of Greek studies in Western Europe and the Vulgate's prominence in the cultural milieu of the continent and its status as the authoritative version of the Bible made it an especially desirable work for humanists to critically examine.[3]

The Collation of the New Testament was Valla's first comparative study of the original Greek New Testament and the Vulgate, with his Annotations of the New Testament being a subsequent though ultimately uncompleted project he dedicated himself to during the mid-1450s; by the end of his life, Valla had completed approximately 2,000 notes on the New Testament.[5] Valla employed humanist philological methods to compare the texts, including favouring the ad sententiam approach against the older medieval ad verbum convention; the former approach critically assessed a word's history and development while the latter convention freely translated between Greek and Latin on a word-for-word basis.[6] By examining the Vulgate's style, vocabulary, and grammar, Valla was able to draw out faulty translations that had obscured the Latin Bible's meaning and other erratum due to copier error.[7] For instance, Valla challenged the Vulgate's translation of the Greek word μετάνοια as "penance" rather than "repentance" and also contended that Jerome had not translated the Vulgate.[8] Valla's analysis of the Vulgate led to criticisms from his fellow humanist Poggio Braccciolini who objected to his tampering with the authoritative Latin text but Valla's work was commended by Cardinal Basilios Bessarion and Nicholas of Cusa.[9] In response to Bracciolini's criticisms Valla responded, "if I am correcting anything, I am not correcting Sacred Scripture, but rather its translation, and in doing so I am not being insolent toward scripture but rather pious, and I am doing nothing more than translating better than the earlier translator, so that it is my translation—should it be correct—that ought to be called Sacred Scripture, not his."[10] Valla, like other philologists, thus saw his efforts to assess the accuracy of the Vulgate as an act of service to theology.[11] Although Valla’s work was limited, it nevertheless represents one of the first attempts to comprehensively collate and evaluate the variants present between Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and the Vulgate.

Influence

Valla’s Collation of the New Testament is perhaps most significant for being a major influence on the Dutch Christian humanist Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536), who came across Valla’s work in mid-1504 in a library near Louvain and who subsequently published Valla's previously-unreleased collation the next year. Valla's collation helped to convince Erasmus that there was an interest in a new translation of the New Testament and Erasmus would write his own translation, drawing upon the scholarship of Valla.[12] Other scholars influenced by Valla include the group gathered by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros at Alcalá who worked on the Complutensian Polyglot Bible in the early 1500s.[13]

Ancient Christian Commentary Series

The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ACCS) is a twenty-nine volume set of commentaries on the Bible published by InterVarsity Press. The ACCS was first conceived of in 1993 and inspired by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.[14] The Methodist scholar Thomas C. Oden, one of the leading paleo-orthodox theologians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, serves as the overall ACCS series editor and the ACCS uses the ecumenically-minded Revised Standard Version of the Bible for its biblical translation. The ACCS is a confessionally collaborative project as individual editors have included scholars from Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism as well as Jewish participation.[15] Notable scholars who contributed to the series’ publication include Andrew Louth, Peter W. Ochs, Benedicta Ward, Frances Young, Christopher A. Hall, Gerald L. Bray, and Manlio Simonetti.

Format

The ACCS covers both the Old Testament and the New Testament, including portions of the deuterocanonical writings which have varying degrees of acceptance among Christian traditions. Its format is such that some volumes contain only a portion of one biblical book (for instance, the ACCS commentary on Genesis is divided between Genesis 1-11 and Genesis 12-50) while other volumes of the ACCS contain multiple biblical books (for instance, Old Testament IV covers Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and 1-2 Samuel). The ACCS was modelled after the Talmud, with Oden explaining that “We are trying to do for the Christian community what the Talmud was seeking to do for the Jewish liturgical memory.”[16] The ACCS’ editorial team employed the latest in digital technology, including Boolean searches, to track down Greek and Latin sources for texts, including many which had not yet been translated into English.[17] The ACCS editors also made use of The Fathers of the Church (85 volumes) and The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (38 volumes), drawing from the church fathers’ various writings, sermons, poetry, and letters.[18] Oden explains that from the array of texts available, editors were “encouraged…to select the best, wisest, and most representative reflections of the ancient Christian writers on any given biblical passage” in order to keep each volume concise.[19] In this way, the ACCS attempts to provide consensual commentary rather than propagating one particular biblical interpretation.

Mission and Scope

The ACCS's mission is to provide the accumulated wisdom of patristic exegesis on the biblical text by assembling and presenting the comments of both well-known church fathers such as Augustine, John Chrysostom, Jerome, and Gregory the Great as well as lesser-known figures including Pseudo-Macarius and Fulgentius of Ruspe and writings of the church fathers whose work does not yet appear in modern English.[20] As one article explained, “Dr. Oden and his colleagues have chosen a form of presentation with, as he puts it, ‘venerable antecedents’ in Eastern Orthodoxy, medieval scholasticism, and the Reformation tradition of glossa ordinaria -- line-by-line commentaries on Bible texts.”[21] Thus, the ACCS employs a presentation style with roots in the Christian tradition. Commentary was drawn from writings originally composed between the New Testament era to 750 AD.[22] The ACCS also provides early non-European biblical interpretations as many of the early church fathers were based in the eastern Mediterranean world and in northern Africa. While the early Reformers were well-versed in patristics, many modern evangelicals are unfamiliar with the church fathers and the ACCS was designed as a means of “ressourcement," particularly for evangelicals interested in patristic thought.[23]

The ACCS was largely funded through subscription, with approximately half of the original twenty-thousand subscribers committing through to the project’s completion.[24] The first three volumes to be released covered the books of Matthew, Mark, and Romans. The ACCS has also been translated into other languages, including Chinese and Russian.

The ACCS helped to inspire the similar Reformation Commentary on Scripture, also published by Intervarsity Press and which is still currently ongoing; Timothy George of Beeson Divinity School serves as its general editor. The ACCS also helped to inspire the five-volume Ancient Christian Doctrine series and the 15-volume Ancient Christian Texts series.[25]


  1. ^ Evans, G.R. (2012). "Authority". In Cameron, Euan (ed.). The New Cambridge History of the Bible: 1450-1750. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press. pp. 393–94. ISBN 9780521513425.
  2. ^ Kraye, Jill (2012). "The Revival of Greek Studies in the West". In Cameron, Euan (ed.). The New Cambridge History of the Bible: 1450-1750. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press. p. 57. ISBN 9780521513425.
  3. ^ a b Bloch, Eileen (April 1965). "Erasmus and the Froben Press: The Making of an Editor". The Library Quarterly. 35 (2): 115. doi:10.1086/619318. ISSN 0024-2519 – via JSTOR.
  4. ^ Celenza, Christopher S. (Summer 2012). "Lorenzo Valla's Radical Philology: The "Preface" to the Annotations to the New Testament in Context". Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. 45: 367. doi:10.1215/10829636-1571912.
  5. ^ Kraye, Jill (2012). "The Revival of Greek Studies in the West". In Cameron, Euan (ed.). The New Cambridge History of the Bible: 1450-1750. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 57. ISBN 9780521513425.
  6. ^ Kraye, Jill (2012). "The Revival of Greek Studies in the West". In Cameron, Euan (ed.). The New Cambridge History of the Bible: From 1450-1750. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press. p. 58. ISBN 9780521513425.
  7. ^ Kraye, Jill (2012). "The Revival of Greek Studies in the West". In Cameron, Euan (ed.). The New Cambridge History of the Bible: 1450-1750. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press. p. 57. ISBN 9780521513425.
  8. ^ Christ-Von Wedel, Christine (2013). Erasmus of Rotterdam: Advocate of a New Christianity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 56–57. ISBN 9781442645080.
  9. ^ Rex, Richard (2012). "Humanist Bible Controversies". In Cameron, Euan (ed.). The New Cambridge History of the Bible. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press. pp. 62–63. ISBN 9780521513425.
  10. ^ Celenza, Christopher S. (Spring 2012). "Lorenzo Valla's Radical Philology: The "Preface" to the Annotations to the New Testament in Context". Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. 42: 365. doi:10.1215/10829636-1571912.
  11. ^ Finkelberg, Margalit (October 2014). "The Original Versus the Received Text with Special Emphasis on the Case of the Comma Johanneum". International Journal of the Classical Tradition. 21: 190–91. doi:10.1007/s12138-014-0346-y – via JSTOR.
  12. ^ Jonge, Henk Jan De (1984). "NOVUM TESTAMENTUM A NOBIS VERSUM: THE ESSENCE OF ERASMUS' EDITION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT". The Journal of Theological Studies. 35 (2): 402. doi:10.1093/jts/35.2.394. ISSN 0022-5185.
  13. ^ Bentley, Jerry H. (1983). Humanists and Holy Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renaissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 12, 84–85. ISBN 9780691155609.
  14. ^ Oden, Thomas C. (2014). A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir. Downers Grove: IVP Academic. pp. 210–16. ISBN 9780830840359.
  15. ^ Oden, Thomas C. (2014). A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir. Downers Grove: IVP Academic. pp. 249–51. ISBN 9780830840359.
  16. ^ Monaghan, Peter (May 1997). "A Publishing Project Focuses on"Fathers of the Church"". Chronicle of Higher Education.
  17. ^ Oden, Thomas C. (2014). A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir. Downers Grove: IVP Academic. pp. 239, 252–53. ISBN 9780830840359.
  18. ^ Monaghan, Peter (May 1997). "A Publishing Project Focuses on"Fathers of the Church"". Chronicle of Higher Education.
  19. ^ Oden, Thomas C. (2014). A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir. Downers Grove: IVP Academic. p. 246. ISBN 9780830840359.
  20. ^ Monaghan, Peter (May 1997). "A Publishing Project Focuses on"Fathers of the Church"". Chronicle of Higher Education.
  21. ^ Monaghan, Peter (May 1997). "A Publishing Project Focuses on"Fathers of the Church"". Chronicle of Higher Education.
  22. ^ Monaghan, Peter (May 1997). "A Publishing Project Focuses on"Fathers of the Church"". Chronicle of Higher Education.
  23. ^ Monaghan, Peter (May 1997). "A Publishing Project Focuses on"Fathers of the Church"". Chronicle of Higher Education.
  24. ^ Le Peau, Andrew T.; Doll, Linda (2006). Heart, Soul, Mind, Strength: An Anecdotal History of InterVarsity Press, 1947-2007. Downers Grove: IVP. p. 140. ISBN 9780830833696.
  25. ^ Le Peau, Andrew T.; Doll, Linda (2006). Heart, Soul, Mind, Strength: An Anecdotal History of InterVarsity Press, 1947-2007. Downers Grove: IVP. p. 187. ISBN 9780830833696.
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